It seems to me that Realm Moderation as it stands is just too unwieldy to be practical. I know that with my sometimes challenging real life job I simply do not have the energy to spend twelve hours looking every detail of a Realm before approving it and while I have not burned by bridges with the whole Realm Moderator role I can't see myself getting back into it as things are now.

This thread is for discussion of how we an improve the whole Realm Moderation process. Here's some thoughts to get us started. As usual these are just my thoughts and I am happy to discuss them!

i) Move from pre submission approval to a post submission approval model. Given that the sumitter must complete their Realm to actually submit it we know that any given Realm can be completed. On submission the Realm goes into an 'Unapproved' list of Realms which players can still play knowing they are unapproved. A Realm must be completed by five differect players before it moves into the 'Approved' list.

ii) Each encounter and the Realm as a whole has a 'Report' feature. This can be for typos, inappropriate language or anything a player feels is worht reporting. These are flagged up to the Realm Moderators who are able to see exactly which encounter has the issue and can then unpublish the Realm or decide that the report is not serious enough to pass back to the designer.

iii) The designer should be able to unpublish their own Realms for editing and republish them at any time. Not sure how this effects scores etc but they should probably be reset? A newly submitted Realm goes back into unapproved.

iv) Let the star rating system do it's work to filter the good Realms from the bad. Insist on a rating on Realm completion.

v) Realm difficulty should reflect the AI difficulty - i.e. Easy, Medium, Hard. I don't think we need more than that and if the star system does it's job then we can see the good ones from the bad. A chellenging map with easy AI is not such a bad thing for everyone.

v) Maybe allow players to write short reviews on a Realm for other players to see?

This proposal as a whole sounds excellent, and I would personally by far more encouraged to both play and also to develop and release realms if we were working in this way.

SlipperyJim wrote:
v) Realm difficulty should reflect the AI difficulty - i.e. Easy, Medium, Hard. I don't think we need more than that and if the star system does it's job then we can see the good ones from the bad. A chellenging map with easy AI is not such a bad thing for everyone.

This in particular is something that I like the sound of. There's no need that I can see for 12 levels of realm difficulty when we only have 3 levels of AI difficulty.

You could even go further and let the designer decide the difficulty of each AI within the realm.

My preference when designing is to use easy AI because I prefer its offensive nature, and reduced number of talismans. I also prefer to have a large number of encounters and a developed storyline or theme. In other words a long easy realm. I'd be able to do that with ths system, and players who also like that setup would be able to experience it.

The extra thing that I would propose is a tagging system so that the designer and/or players could tag the type of experience that is likely to occur.

Length/Theme/Difficulty - All sorts of indicators could be given to the player in advance.

Nice, I like the idea of players being able to write a short review/appraisal (or even pre-testing a realm before release).. after all, it is the player who tests the submitted realm under the proper conditions (without the solution given), the player may have a different opinion of what worked and what didn't.

I play every single realm and have completed every single one (sometimes multiple times), I'm kinda reluctant to take on the responsibility of being a moderator (for now at least, this could change though) but submitting some kind of appraisal for each realm would be something I would feel more comfortable with, just minor feedback which could potentially help the moderating process..

..players could offer feedback on anything the realm creator could have done differently to achieve what they were trying to achieve or point out any problem areas or places they got stuck (this is mostly due to the tools the realm creators have at their disposal though). Basically, players could assess their experience from a different perspective, using a different insight or slightly different criteria to the ones mods use.

As a designer, out-of-game and in I'd love to open it up somehow so that player's ideas can build off of one another in some collaborative way. This could be a part of the already-suggested feedback. But building a culture where realms become longer conversations between various players, offering suggestions/alternatives/and feedback etc in a way that generates unexpected results.

Were i'd place this potential un approved realms list, is in the 'my realms' menu (were you look at all of your WIP's and released realms)

Here, you could devise a little menu for everyone to hop in their own and check out any unapproved realms which were submitted. This could be a potential way to go about things.

Otherwise, if that whole 5 players beat a realm = release system wasn't workable, merely cutting back the work the moderators have to do, and having a reporting/feedback system, and a way for realm designers to take their realms off and resubmit them would probably do wonders towards easing the flow of things.

The highscore thing seems to be the main thing in the way at this point. Seeing as the highscore was of no fault of the player, i'd suggest that it simply remains when a realm is taking off/placed back on. Restrictions on what can be fixed in a realm might be in order, but could provide some good leeway to keep things cool (limits like only changing texts) and simply having a realm that needs major changes just sign off like any expired realm would (leaving the highscores for the players who did beat it)

A good reporting, moderating guideline that provides a harsh enough penalty for exploits might mitigate players just trying to game this system and tricking the moderator...but then...what anyone would have to gain for going through the trouble of doing (the exploiting thing) that is beyond me.

Thinking about this in the simplest terms possible to increase likelihood of implementation....

Each realm could have a 5 star rating system for quality/enjoyment and difficulty that is available to players of the realm. The current rating system, however, needs to be corrected so that players cannot proceed without input.

As well as a feedback panel of some kind to report glitches, grammar, and ideas for changes etc.

And likely a report/flagging system to deal with the occasional profanity issues, etc

So, as a player looking to do a realm, you'd have a few different indications as to the condition of each realm:
# of players that have attempted realm, difficulty, quality

Maybe there's a 2-color coding system related to realms that have reached a number of players and a level of quality. At least 10 players and rating above 3 (or somesuch) = green font, otherwise is red.

It's been several months since Jim posted this and it seems to just grow better as an idea over time. I know there were a couple hangups concerning the potential for inappropriate material being uploaded via realm language etc, but to me that seems a relatively simple fix. As it now stands we've obviously got a problem and it doesn't appear to be getting much attention. Obviously, folks have been busy with the update, and resources are limited, but we are missing a huge opportunity under the current system. I've personally got 1 realm completely finished and ready to go as well as another one well under way that deals with the beginning of the creation of some guild lore. Since the update's removal of the realm creator's ally button I couldn't even submit it if I wanted to, which I don't, cause the current system sucks. So, maybe we can get some transparency on where we are at and where we are headed, a sense of a realistic timeline we can stick to, and transfer the power of the ability to create more storyline and narrative back into the hands of the playerbase.